


no fear of shadows spreading

by unconscious



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, Mild Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 15:41:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3139721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unconscious/pseuds/unconscious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"‘Things that live in darkness are attracted to light,’ was what he said exactly. Ominous, innit?”</i>
</p>
<p>They're just getting used to Zayn being part-angel when Niall gets bitten by a werewolf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no fear of shadows spreading

**Author's Note:**

  * For [almostwinter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/almostwinter/gifts).



It’s fall in Los Angeles, and the night air is balmy enough that Niall can get away with leaving his jacket at the hotel. The streets are fairly quiet, since o one walks in LA, and Zayn and Niall are sharing a cigarette outside a dimly-lit dive.

They’re knocking their shoulders together, buzzing from a few drinks, but Niall’s not had enough to wind his fingers between Zayn’s, not yet at least. This whole thing feels a bit fragile, like if Niall moves too quickly he’ll snap it in two. Since he confessed they’ve messed around a bit, a kiss in a dressing room or a handjob in a hotel bed, some heated looks, or at least Niall thinks they’re heated, but they’ve somehow managed to avoid talking about it. It’s working. For now, at least.

And now, after Zayn’s come clean about his superpowers or whatever, something has shifted. He’s always been magnetic, effortlessly graceful and kind, but now it’s different. He’d been shrouding something and none of them had known, and now that he’s not, it’s like Niall can’t look anywhere else. Light comes from inside him. Niall’s hands seek Zayn out unconsciously. Zayn is steadfast, open, and just… happier. Like he’s left behind a great weight. None of them had realized what Zayn had been carrying. Now Niall doesn't know if he can ever let that secret go.

“Hey, did you hear that?” Zayn says, holding the cigarette out to Niall.

Niall blinks back into the present moment. “What? Hear what, mate?”

“Thought I heard something in that alley,” Zayn says, and shuffles to the corner. He peeks into the alley and stiffens.

“Zayn?”

Zayn takes the cigarette back and stubs it out. “Hm. We should go. Getting late, innit?”

“What?”

“Let’s go, mate, go inside and get Paul to bring the car around.”

“What’s going on?” Niall asks, but Zayn’s already ducking around the corner into the alley. And of course Niall follows.

A cold wind cuts down the alley, unnaturally cold, raising goosebumps on Niall’s skin. The walls are high, dark brick with darker windows and rusted fire escapes. It’s dim, like the streetlamps can’t quite find a way in. There’s nothing but still puddles and neglected bins lining the alley, but it smells vibrant, alive. Something is about to snap. Zayn is silhouetted in the alley, narrow and angular, but his presence seems to physically push at the darkness.

He’s standing in front of a dog.

Niall squints. It looks like a dog, a huge hulking beast of a dog, with its dark hackles raised and its eyes flashing yellow in the thick darkness. It drools, snaps its jaws at Zayn, gnashes too many sharp teeth. Its paws are wide-set on the pavement, like Zayn’s Doc Martens, a game of chicken where one will turn and run.

“Fuck,” Niall breathes.

The thing-- the dog-- looks away from Zayn. And directly at him. It’s nostrils flare and its tongue, blood-red, lolls out of its mouth.

Zayn follows the dog’s eyes, risking a glance over his shoulder and he sees Niall at the entrance to the alleyway. “I said--” but his words are lost into a grunt of pain as the dog barrels past him, its bulk knocking him roughly into the brick wall as it charges Niall.

He smells it more than anything. It smells of dirt and blood and sweat. And it’s fast, so fast, but simultaneously the bulk of it seems to hang in the air as it pushes itself of the ground, hovering just long enough for him to hear Zayn call his name before he sees blackness.

**

The next thing Niall sees is florescent lights. He squints up at the light and lets his eyes adjust for a moment, willing the pounding in his head to subside.

Okay, hospital.

He wiggles his fingers and toes experimentally-- everything still moves at his command, that’s good.

His whole body is throbbing, a dull ache emanating from just over his right hip, like an infection that’s sunk from his skin to his bones.

The room is quiet except for the rhythmic beeping of the machinery and Zayn’s voice. He’s speaking quietly, and his Bradford accent has gone incomprehensibly thick, so Niall knows family is on the other end.

“No, it wasn’t like that,” Zayn’s saying.

Niall opens his eyes just enough to see Zayn leaning his forehead against the window of the hospital room and chewing on his thumbnail. “You didn’t tell me any of this, for all I knew it was just a stupid genetic anomaly. You didn’t say--” he stops, and thumps his head against the glass a few times. “I know you said not to tell anyone. You told Mum though, didn’t you?” Another pause. Thump. “Sure, it’s not the same, but it’s sort of the same. You should’ve--”

“Hey,” Niall says, and it comes out as weird croak. He clears his throat. “Hey.”

Zayn whips around, his eyes wide. “Hey, Dad, I gotta go, okay? Niall’s awake.” He’s smiling now, but it’s pinched at the edges. “Yeah, he looks all right. I’ll call you back.” He shoves his phone into his pocket and takes a few tentative steps towards the bed. “Hey.”

“How long’ve I been out?”

“Not long. Half a day.”

Niall whistles. “Where the rest of the lads at?”

“Damage control,” Zayn says with a shrug. “Meetings and such. Cancelling the next few shows.”

“We don’t have to do that. Shit, mate, how many is the next few?”

Zayn shrugs again. “Playing it by ear.”

“Not gonna ask if I feel up to a show?”

“Do ya?”

Niall sinks back into the pillows on his bed and places a hand tentatively on the burning place above his hip. “Nah, not really.”

Zayn’s still standing a few paces from the bed. “I’m sorry,” he blurts suddenly, and rakes a hand through his hair. “This wasn’t-- I didn’t know, that like-- do you remember what happened?”

“Sort of,” Niall says. He scoots over on the bed, freeing up the left side the bed and the uninjured side of his body. “C’mere?”

Zayn’s shoulders drop as he visibly relaxes, and gingerly crawls into the hospital bed, careful not to jostle them. “You want--?” he asks, holding his above Niall’s chest.

“Yeah,” Niall sighs. He closes his eyes, letting Zayn burrow into his side. “Hit me with the good stuff, mate.”

With an hum of agreement, Zayn places the palm of his hand on Niall’s solar plexus. The relief is almost immediate as whatever it is-- Zayn’s powers, angel magic, weird genetic anomaly-- seeps into his body, finds the pain, and wrestles it into something manageable.

“Don’t remember much,” Niall murmurs. He feels better now. It’s feels good to have Zayn tucked into his side again. “I remember the dog coming at me. And how weird and cold it was in the alley. But that’s it, really. It must’ve got me good to put me in the hospital like this.”

“Jesus,” Zayn mutters, and pushes his face into Niall’s side. “I’m sorry. Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“For what, mate? Not your fault I can’t fight off a dog. Right embarrassing.”

Zayn exhales, a whoosh of breath Niall feels before Zayn shifts around just enough to speak clearly. “I was talking to my dad on the phone just now--”

“He ground ya?”

“Yeah.”

“Ha! I was kidding! He actually grounded you?”

“Yeah, he said next time I came home I was spending it grounded. But like, I told him what happened, because it was weird, you know? It wasn’t like, a regular dog. I’d heard stories and stuff of things like it, but I thought they were just stories, right?” Zayn takes a breath. Niall finds his shoulder and traces circles there, but doesn’t interrupt. “So I called my dad, just because I was nervous about it, and he asked if I’d been, like-- using my touch more. So I said, yeah, sure, told the lads, all’s well and good, and he had a strop. And he said, when you use it more, it like… it can, like, attract things? ‘Things that live in darkness are attracted to light,’ was what he said exactly. Ominous, innit?”

“Pretty ominous,” Niall mutters. “Does he know what it was?” He knows he should be surprised and horrified, but it’s hard to feel anything bad with the constant warmth emanating from Zayn.

“A werewolf,” Zayn says, half-choked, like the diagnosis has been burning a hole in his chest. “My dad thinks it was a werewolf.”

“Hmmm,” Niall says, keeping his eyes closed. “Pretty sure werewolves aren’t real, mate.”

The warmth increases suddenly, a flash of heat like stepping into a hot car, but it dissipates almost immediately.

“Sorry,” Zayn says. “It’s just--”

“I’m tryin t’ snooze here, yeah?” Niall says, nudging Zayn. “We’ll figure it out, right? With the lads.”

Fifteen minutes later, Niall has a face full of french fries and Harry Styles tucked into his side, while Zayn and Louis speak in low voices across the hospital room.

“How’s it?” Harry says, placing his hand on Niall’s belly like Zayn had, but it’s not as warm and it doesn’t make his heart jump like Zayn’s does. It’s just nice, and safe, and he hums his response.

“Hm,” Niall says around his fries.

“Not too bad?”

“S’great, mate, I love In-N-Out.”

“Not the burger, the wound. The gruesome battle scars.”

“Oh,” Niall says. He eats another french fry and thinks about it. “It’s ok. Zayn did his soothing thing and that helped. He’s like a human heating pad.”

“Yeah?” Harry pokes his good side and then reaches into the bag to steal a fry. “So you and Zayn, huh?”

Niall starts. He didn’t think he and Zayn were being obvious since that night, but he often forgets that Harry always pays, like, a weird amount of attention to his surroundings, even when he seems to be lost in his own head. He glances up. Zayn and Louis are still speaking, intensely, and Louis’ brow is deeply furrowed and his mouth twisted, and Liam has stepped in and has a hand on each of their shoulders.

“Um,” Niall says. “I mean, I don’t know, like-- what do you mean?”

Harry shrugs. “Just, you know.”

“I don’t know,” Niall says.

“Yeah, you do.”

“Do not.”

“I think it’s cute,” Harry says, and sits up so he’s on the edge of the bed. He squeezes Niall’s knee very gently. “Just saying. When do they let you out of here?”

***

The doctor releases Niall at the end of the day with a well-dressed wound, a couple painkillers and a hefty round of antibiotics. Zayn looks pale as he turns the little orange bottle of horse pills over and over in his hands.

"Take it you don't think they'll work, then, huh?" Niall says into Zayn's ear in the car ride back to the hotel. "Calm down." He places a hand on Zayn's knee and squeezes, and then in fit of bravery ducks his head and presses his lips to Zayn's neck. His skin is warm and his heartbeat frantic. "It was just a dog. You're getting all worked up for nothing."

Then he has the first nightmare.

Zayn stays in his hotel room and even in sleep his brow is furrowed. Niall wakes easily, slowly, and he’s not in any pain. The gash is completely healed, it seems. He stands up and he feels tall and broad and strong and peckish. He walks around the bed and stands over Zayn. Zayn shifts in his sleep like he knows he’s being watched. Then Niall feels something dark in his gut tug him forward, and he looks at his hands, and they’re his hands but they’re not his hands, they’re bigger than his hands and they’re coarse with hair, and his nails are long and sharp and thick, and they’re his hands but they’re not his hands because they’re reaching towards Zayn and pushing him onto his back and he wants to stop but he also doesn’t want to stop, and Zayn wakes up and he looks at Niall with cold fear, and Niall wants to stop but he can’t stop, he doesn’t want to stop, he pushes those long sharp thick nails into the spaces between Zayn’s ribs and Zayn’s gasping, convulsing, as blood appears in his mouth, on his sheets--

“God dammit, Niall!”

Niall wakes with a gasp. The sharp inhale pulls at his wound and the pain is hot and sharp, even through the haze of painkillers. Zayn is sitting up next to him, both hands on his chest, his eyes red-rimmed and bright with worry. “S’a dream, mate, just a dream. You’re okay,”

“Dreamed I-- something was like-- forcing me, I had claws, and you were-- Zayn--” Niall’s shaking now, the dream still fresh at the edges of his consciousness, and Zayn pulls him close and radiates that warmth Niall knows so well now. The shaking subsides, but it takes a long time.

“You had claws?” Zayn asks, quietly, once he’s calmed.

“Yeah,” Niall says. “Like they were my hands, but I couldn’t control them. Like I was trapped in my own head, watching myself--”

“S’just a dream,” Zayn says again, quieter this time, and eventually Niall sleeps again, albeit fitfully.

***

When he wakes, Zayn’s packing his things.

“Hey,” Niall says, raising up onto his elbows. “Going somewhere?”

Zayn starts. He’s hunched over his suitcase, barely visible in the dimmed lights of the room. The curtains are still closed. It’s very early. He looks so lovely silhouetted there-- the curve of his spine, the silent movement of his hands. “Yeah,” he says. “Gotta go home for a bit.”

“What for?”

“Just family stuff,” Zayn says, and then, in one swift movement, crawls back onto the bed. He’s fully clothed atop the sheets while Niall’s in his pants beneath them. “Won’t be long.”

Niall collapses back onto the bed. “Don’t want you to go,” he mutters, and it’s strange to say it out loud, but-- he doesn’t. His side hurts and his bones hurt and he’s scared and that dream sucked and he doesn’t want Zayn to leave.

“I’m sorry,” Zayn says. “Gotta.”

“Bullshit,” Niall says. Zayn’s so warm and bony. Niall’s already dreading the moment he gets up. 

“I’ll be back before you know it,” Zayn says, and pushes his nose into Niall’s jaw, and Niall almost pulls away, but just sighs instead.

“Kinda fucked up, mate, just leavin’.”

Zayn rolls over and presses his face into the pillow, huffing out a breath before sitting back up. “It’s just-- I can’t explain--”

Niall rolls over and pulls the duvet over his head. “Pass me phone over here, will ya?”

So Zayn does, and then he says, “I’ll text, okay?” and Niall doesn’t answer, and then the door clicks closed.

A couple hours and incessant WhatsApp messages later, Louis is sitting on his bed and on the phone with room service.

“Bacon,” Niall says. “And sausage. Bacon and sausage. And turkey sausage. And sausage gravy on biscuits. Ooh. Steak and eggs. Scratch the sausage gravy, steak and eggs instead.”

“You hungry or something?” Louis says when he hangs up the phone. “Should I have gotten you an entire cow?”

“I could probably eat a cow,” Niall muses.

The food comes, and Louis doesn’t say anything about Zayn’s absence. Louis can be good that way, when it’s important. Niall eats three plates of meat and is still hungry. The steak could’ve been rarer. He wants another.

***

A week passes. Three things happen. One: Niall can't stop eating. No one seems to notice anything strange, as Niall's generally the hungriest of the lot and most willing to complain about it, but it's not normal hunger. He craves meat constantly, dark wild meats like duck and gamey pork and red bleeding steaks. He thinks about it constantly. He orders room service in secret.

Two: The wound heals, but the nightmares continue. He wakes up half-crazy and drenched in sweat.

Three: Zayn's texting, as promised, and of course Niall responds. He's bad at holding grudges, especially with the lads.

On the fourth night after Zayn leaves, Niall dreams he scales their hotel from the outside in a vicious storm. He dreams he's on the roof looking out over sparkling Los Angeles, and his eyes are eagle-sharp despite the needling rain. Again his hands don't look like his hands, but they are his hands, he's accepted this, and as he looks out over the city he thinks I have to get away.

He wakes up alone in his hotel room and, as is routine, rinses the sweat off in a cold shower that feels nothing like the dream-storm. He braces one hand on the shower wall and hears Zayn's Bradford accent gone thicker with fear, cracking around the word werewolf.

***

_what's the malik lore then mate ?_

_Lore?_

_the whole were-niall thing mate ! or do u actually have fam issues ?  
i assumed it was me. immmm so vaaainnn_

_Course its you idiot. x_

_what's the craic then ?_

_Why are you asking? Thought you didnt buy it? did something happen?_

_just curious ha !_

_No seriously, did something happen? More dreams mate? x_

_ya every night :/ not bad tho first one was the worst the one when u were here_

_Anything else? Got a better head of hair now? Get any taller?_

_okkkkk dr. malik i think i'm pregnant i can't stop eating steaaaak !! steak for every meal !!! missin my grill gonna fly back home just to fire it up ! hotels cant make it right !_

_Seriously?_

_AS A HEART ATTACK ! !_

_Aha x  
Im coming back soon ok? Will u lmk if anything else happens? x_

_ya. miss ya bruv still mad at u for leaving_

_I'll explain x_

***

Two more days pass and Zayn still doesn't return. It's raining in LA, and that makes Niall's skin crawl. They're still holed up in the hotel and Paul, in his infinite majesty, has somehow managed to keep their location secret

He keeps the wound wrapped just in case. It’s healed up, but it feels like it shouldn’t have.

"Can you believe this?" Harry whines from the foot of the bed where he's curled up. He waves a hand at the window as the rain pounds against it. "Rain in LA. Unheard of. It's making me sad."

"How long’s it gonna last?" Liam asks mildly from the floor, where he's leaning against the foot of the bed with Louis next to him. Louis is scrolling through the on demand films, scowling at the selection.

Harry fishes his phone out of his pocket and scrolls down it. "Ugh. At least until tomorrow." His thumb moves down the screen. "Sixty percent humidity. Visibility at ten miles apparently which I don't buy. Rain expected to last until tomorrow, eighty percent chance," he recites dully. "Moon in waxing gibbous. Sundown at 4:54pm. Wind at 5.4 miles per hour north. 30.2in barometric pressure."

"That's quite enough, Haz," Louis says. "Thank you for the thorough report."

"Quite welcome." Harry flops over at the foot of the bed, resting his head on Niall's calves. It doesn't look comfortable but Harry hums, pleased.

Does waxing mean moving towards or away full? Niall tries to remember his early science classes without much luck. He grabs his phone from the bedside table.

_dya think it'll happen at the full moon then mate ?_

Zayn responds immediately. _Did something else happen?_

_noooo just discussing the moon with the lads... like ya do_

_Why? Did you tell them?_

_no, h was just talkin about the moon_

_Typical_

_should I tell them ?_

_dunno. Do you want to?_

_dunno_

"Finally, something worth watching," Louis announces as he selects _Blade_. He tilts his head up on the back of the bed so he can peer up at Niall and Harry. "So, since angels are apparently real, d'ya think vampires are too?"

"Zayn might not even be angel," Harry says. "He could just be a lucky mutant."

"Plus, Tommo, I'd figure demons are real before vampires, if we're using angel as the baseline for real-ness," Liam adds. "Bit scary, that."

"Shall I put on Paranormal Activity instead then?" Louis waves the remote around.

"Let's not," Harry says, settling onto the bed next to Niall instead of lying uncomfortably across his legs.

"Shall we hold a seance?" Louis says. "Summon a demon? Bet we can get a Ouija board through room service."

"I vote we wait until our guardian angel returns before we start attempting to summon demons," Liam says.

"Our guardian angel!" Harry squawks with delight. He knocks his shoulder into Niall's and grins at him, and Niall flushes.

After the movie, Niall downloads a lunar calendar app. He learns waxing means the moon is approaching full. It's three days away.

***

The next day, by mid-afternoon the other lads have dispersed. Harry and Liam are at the pool, and Louis holed up somewhere, likely on the phone with Eleanor. Niall’s not even sure where their security is. It’s been quiet. Niall’s dressed; now that the wound is fully healed he’d grown tired of lounging about in joggers. He’s pulled on a pair of jeans and an old t-shirt that stretches tight across his shoulders. He’s flipping through the the telly idly when the scent catches his attention.

It’s faint, but it’s there, the barest hint of a scent like a moth blown in through the window. It smells like Zayn: the strange empty clean of laundry detergent, a bit of hair product, some terrible Tom Ford patchouli nonsense he’d nicked from Harry, and under all of it the unnameable scent of his skin.

Niall rolls over on the bed, pressing his face to the pillow to see if he’d just caught a whiff from the sheets. It only smells like fancy hotel.

He flops onto his back and inhales deeply, chasing the scent. He’d been missing Zayn, sure, but they’d been texting, and Niall was used to being apart. More used to living in each others’ pockets, but also used to being apart. But just that hint, the not-quite-enough of it, turned Niall’s chest to a knot of nerves, had him physically hurting to see Zayn again.

It’s never been like this before.

He takes a deep breath again, this time to calm down. And there it was again, that terrible cologne, the smell of his skin, stronger now, closer.

Someone knocks on his door.

Niall scrambles from the bed and charges to the door, flings it open, and -- it’s Zayn, standing there with his bag over his shoulder, looking at his phone.

“I was just about to text you mate, couldn’t remember if this was your room,” he says. He looks sheepish.

“Christ,” Niall says, and tugs him inside. He’s just got the door shut and Zayn doesn’t even have time to drop his bag before Niall wraps both his arms around his neck and presses his face into Zayn’s neck. He inhales deeply, the scent clear and strong and familiar, and it’s like a long drink of water after a match. A pint after a show. A steak. It’s good and he didn’t know how bad he wanted it.

“Oh,” Zayn says, and wraps his arms around Niall’s middle. “Thought you were mad at me.”

“Still am,” Niall says. He presses his lips to Zayn’s throat, follows it with a hint of teeth, and pulls away. Zayn shudders. “It’s just,” Niall continues, “I thought I could smell you,” he admits. “And now you’re here. So I probably did.”

Zayn pulls back to get a better look, and to drop his bag on the floor. “You’re taller,” he says.

“Am not.”

“Yeah, you are. Just a bit.” Zayn runs one hand through Niall’s hair and tugs gently. Niall closes his eyes. “Your roots are growing out quite fast, too.”

“Whassit mean, then?”

Zayn tugs Niall’s shirt up and Niall hums. “S’all healed,” Zayn says, tracing his fingers gently over the light scarring. It doesn’t feel warm.

Niall tugs his shirt down and moves away to sit at the edge of the bed. Zayn lingers in the foyer. He’s dressed as he always does for travel: jeans, Doc Martens, denim jacket, and his hair tamed by one of Louis’ beanies. He looks pale and tired.

“I’m sort of scared,” Niall admits. “Gonna tell me where you buggered off to?”

Zayn crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed next to him. He knocks his foot against Niall’s. “Went home,” he says. “To ask my dad what to do. Since this is my fault, and all.”

“S’not your fault,” Niall says automatically.

“It is, though,” Zayn says, and flops backwards onto the bed. He keeps his foot bumping rhythmically against Niall’s. “I was reckless and stupid and didn’t consider, like, consequences, and that thing came for me, you know? Not for you. You were just there.”

Niall doesn’t say anything. He tilts forward and rests his elbows on his knees, and his forehead on his palms.

“And that dream you had. It like-- solidified it. For me. That it wasn’t just a dog. And then everything else, the cravings, the smelling, your roots growing out so fast--”

“S’not that fast.”

“I knew then. That it was… this.” Zayn pauses and takes a breath. “A werewolf.”

“So what’d you do at home, then?” Niall says. He feels like he can’t breathe.

“Just, um. My dad taught me how to control it better. So it’s not like, constantly emanating from me and attracting stuff. Back to how it was before, all bottled up. But I can let it out better now, more controlled. And I was trying to figure out if there was a way to do something about the-- the bite.”

“Is there, then?”

“Not really,” Zayn admits quietly.

“Oh.” Niall simultaneously wants to cuddle up against Zayn forever and also hurl him out the window. “When will it happen? Like. Will I change at all?”

“Dunno,” Zayn says. “Soon, probably.”

In fact, it happens that night.

***

It’s not the full moon. That’s Niall’s first thought when he wakes up sweating, his skin itching all over like he’s covered in ants.

Zayn’s asleep next to him shrouded in the light of the almost-full moon, his dark hair fanned out on the pillow, his breathing slow and even. Niall feels zero remorse when he kicks him in the shins. “Wake up. Something’s happening.”

Zayn blinks blearily at him. “Whussit?”

“Something’s happening,” Niall says, and he clambors out of bed and pulls on his jeans and a t-shirt. “I gotta get out of this room, mate, gotta get outside. I dunno what it is.”

“Fuck,” Zayn says, and stumbles out of bed as well. He pulls on Niall’s joggers, discarded in a corner, and a hoodie. “You think--”

“Don’t know,” Niall says. “Just-- let’s get outside, ok?”

“This is bad,” Zayn says, but he’s gripping Niall by the wrist and pulling him out of the hotel room.

Several flights of stairs, a service ladder, and a picked lock later, they’re on the roof of the hotel, looking out across the twinkling LA lights. It’s just a few hours from dawn. Niall is so unbelievably glad there’s no needling rain.

They’re sitting near the edge of the roof. “Should’ve brought my smokes,” Zayn murmurs.

"I'm scared," Niall says as his skin prickles and itches in the night air. "I'm really scared."

"Hey." Zayn intertwines his fingers with Niall's. "It's gonna be okay. The first time is.. weird. According to my dad."

"Does it hurt? Am I going to turn into that weird dog thing?"

"I don't think so. It's like... the thing about like, things like this, like me and you, is it sort of manifests differently depending on how you use it. So like, if you go out and like, kill people, you'll become more like... an animal? That's what my dad said. That the thing that got you went full animal. It doesn't have to be like that."

"So what's the first time like, then?"

"Dunno," Zayn says, and he squeezes Niall's hand. With his other hand, he turns Niall's face so he's looking at Zayn instead of the sprawling city below. Zayn looks scared, too, but somehow sure of himself. His eyes are clear. "But like, whatever happens, you're still Niall, okay? You're our Niall."

Zayn leans forward and kisses him, and then somehow Niall is clinging, one hand still gripping Zayn's, the other tangled in the soft fabric of his hoodie.

That's what seems to set it off. Like the bite would let him have that last moment of humanity before taking hold. It feels like nausea. Thick, rolling waves of nausea, the kind that swell in his guts when he’s caught in a particularly tight crowd. Niall breaks away from Zayn, moving to the center of the roof, his head tilted up seeking the stars. Like the night air might offer some solace from the sickness. It grows like a storm, until Niall is doubled over with his hands pressed to his stomach.

He looks down at his hands, and they’re the hands from his dreams. Too large, and his nails are thick and dark and pointed, but there’s no excess hair, just his own smooth pale skin. His heart is in his mouth, and when he opens it, no sound comes out. He feels sick, so sick. And hungry. He thinks about his grill, tries to focus on that. The feel of the sun on the back of his neck, the chirping of the birds, the sizzle of meat on the grill. The smell. The barest tension when you slice through the steak when it’s cooked just rare-- he stops the thought.

“Niall?”

Zayn stands near the edge of the roof. “All right, then?”

He looks smaller. Niall looks down and -- he doesn’t look much different. He toes off his shoes, and he’s claw-footed on the rough hotel roof. His jeans are tight around the new girth of his waist and thighs, and his legs are longer, but the jeans are still intact. His shirt is tighter too, stretched across his shoulders, the new bulk of his biceps. He touches his face, and there’s no hair there either. But his teeth-- exploring them with his tongue finds his incisors larger, sharper.

“Dunno, Zayner,” he says, and his voice is deep and rough.

Zayn softens and steps forward, one hand extended towards Niall. “Come on, then,” he says.

“Where?” Niall’s tense, like a wound spring.

“Just with me,” Zayn says.

“I dunno,” Niall says, and he looks back out over the sprawling city. Then the hunger hits. It’s the same pangs he’s felt all week, but magnified, like he hasn’t eaten in a month. But somehow the fast hasn’t weakened him, it’s just made angry, furious to be so deprived. The city is so vast and full of pavement but there has to be dirt somewhere, right? Some sort of woods. Somewhere with animals. His feet flex on the roof. He could be running through the dirt somewhere now, chasing something, something gamey, something--

Zayn tackles him.

“Stop that,” he says. “You’re thinking about bolting, stop it. You can’t.”

The shock of the tackle knocked Niall over, not Zayn’s weight nor strength. Niall’s beneath him and can barely feel Zayn atop him. He weighs nothing. He could pitch him off just by standing up. He moves to do just that.

Zayn drops both hands to Niall’s chest and says, “I’m sorry.” 

The shock runs through his body and makes him arch up without meaning to, and the pain is like his blood’s been replaced boiling water, thin and burning. The sound Niall makes is inhuman. It’s not quite a howl, and it’s not quite a roar, but it’s loud and cracked and hurting. His brain rattles with it. His vision goes spotty and then fades out.

***

When Niall opens his eyes, the sun is breaking over the horizon and his head is pounding like he’d been drinking all night. He inhales deeply but no scents stand out. Just the LA smog.

Zayn’s standing by the edge of the roof again, repeatedly patting his person like if he wishes for a cigarette hard enough, one might appear.

“Hey,” Niall croaks.

Zayn whips around. He’s on his knees next to Niall in an instant, but not touching. “All right?” His eyes are red.

“Your eyes are red,” Niall says. “You okay?”

“Fucking hell.” Zayn tips forward, relieved, until his forehead is resting on Niall’s chest. With a hum, Niall cards his fingers through Zayn’s hair. The fingernails are back to normal, now.

Back in Niall’s the hotel room, Zayn explains. Niall’s lying on the bed on his belly, exhausted and sore, and Zayn sits next to him. Zayn’d gone home at his dad’s request, and he’d been grounded as promised, and his dad gave him a crash course in the touch. Not the usual things like hed’ been doing, but serious stuff, scary stuff. Stuff you could really hurt someone with. And he knew he’d have to do something when Niall first changed, because the first change is the most dangerous, when the wilderness calls the loudest. And if Niall got away-- fuck knows what could’ve happened. He could’ve turned up half-naked and unconscious in some strange alleyway for a fan to find. (Zayn doesn’t mention any violence, but it’s implied in the whiteness of his knuckles.) So he didn’t know what to do besides incapacitate him. And that’s what had scared him. It was a crash course, after all, he didn’t really know how much power to use to knock Niall out but not cause any permanent damage, or worse. 

“Thanks,” Niall says. “For. You know. Knocking me out. And also not killing me.”

“Shut up,” Zayn says, and flicks Niall on the shoulder. In the past he might’ve shocked him.

“So like… if I’m a werewolf, and the thing that got me is a werewolf, why am I not a dog?”

“It’s like, it’s not a sickness, you know? It’s not really a curse, either. It’s just a condition. It can be managed, you know? That’s why the first couple changes are so important. If you give it into, and like, go out and do something… really bad, it’ll manifest differently.”

“First couple changes? Like the next few months?”

“No, you’ll probably change tonight, too. And the next night. Then it might ease up. It’s sort of different for everyone, I think.”

“Ah, fuck.”

“So,” Zayn continues, “The one that got you, it gave up on its humanity, right? And just… let the bite take over.”

“How d’ya know that won’t happen to me?” Niall says into his pillow, and his voice sounds very small, even to himself.

Zayn stretches out on the bed and flops halfway over Niall, slinging his arm over Niall’s middle and snuggling close to his side. Zayn presses his lips to Niall’s neck, just above the hem of his shirt, and Niall thinks he feels that warmth but he could be imagining it.

Or it could just be Zayn.

“‘Cause you’ve got us,” Zayn says. “Me. And three other lads.”

“Am I supposed to be snogging the other three too?”

Zayn pokes him in the ribs. “I’ll talk to them. About, you know, all this. If you want.”

***

He does change that night, while all five of them are in Niall’s room watching _Blade II_. 

“It’s happening,” Niall chokes out halfway through the film. It’s much earlier than last night. “You should go, lads, all of you.”

“Roof again?” Zayn asks.

“No,” Niall says, thinking of how the lights had been so intoxicating, the delicate scent of trees in the distance. “Just gonna lock myself in the bathroom, I guess.”

“We’re staying,” Louis says definitively. “We’ll pause the film for you.” He changes the channel, flips to some dull house renovation show. 

It’s strange and hard-- his chest swells with affection as his stomach roils with nausea, and his body aches like it doesn’t have room for all of it.

They sit on the cold tile floor, and Zayn doesn’t knock him out. He just keeps his arms wrapped tightly around Niall, burning like a furnace, murmuring in Urdu and Niall feels the calm filtering in, like a lighter at the edge of the darkness. He pants, open-mouthed, and struggles in Zayn’s grip but can’t break it. He thinks about running in the dirt and catching animals and eating them. Then he thinks about eating his friends. Then he thinks human, stay human, and his claws dig deep into Zayn’s forearms, but he doesn’t notice.

***

Niall wakes up in the hotel bed. The sun’s up, and the clock tells him it’s nearing eleven. Zayn’s in the bathroom, standing in front of the mirror. It’s weird that Zayn’s awake before him. That probably has never happened before. His head is pounding.

“I’m back again,” Niall says.

Zayn straightens and turns to face the bed. He leans against the doorframe, his socked feet crossed at the ankle, Niall’s joggers hanging low on his hips, a clean thin white t-shirt stretched across his chest. One forearm’s wrapped in gauze and cloth tape, and he’s working on fastening the tape on his other arm. “Hey. Happy full moon.”

With a start Niall sits up straight and plants his feet on the floor. He can smell the blood clotting. “What’s that? Did I hurt you?” He stands up, but his vision goes fuzzy with dizziness and he teeters back down onto the edge of the bed.

“Just a nick,” Zayn says. “Barely anything, really.”

It doesn’t smell like barely anything. Niall closes his eyes and presses his fingers to his temples. “I didn’t notice,” he says. “S’it the full moon tonight, then?”

“Yeah, mate. Should be ok, though. You did really good.”

Niall snorts. “Will tonight be different?”

“Not really. Might come on a bit sooner, last a bit longer. Should be fine.”

“Doesn’t feel fine,” Niall says.

Zayn steps back into the bathroom and emerges with a cup of cold water. He sits on the bed next to Niall and presses it into his hands. Niall chugs it all and his headache begins to dissipate. Could be the water, or could just be having Zayn close to him again. The scent is there again, missing that terrible patchouli undertone of Harry’s cologne-- just the barest scent of his sweat, the smell of laundry and soap, Niall’s own scent in the joggers, and the powerful iron tang of blood.

He’s wracked with guilt, smelling the blood, but his own scent on those joggers mingling with Zayn’s makes his stomach flip.

“All right there?”

“Still got my wolfy senses,” Niall murmurs, going a bit red. He tilts head, presses his nose to Zayn’s shoulder, and lets himself inhale deeply. “You smell good.”

“Good how, hm?” Zayn slides his hand across Niall’s waist, then up his back.

“Just good.”

Niall stays there, breathing in Zayn’s scent, letting Zayn’s palm move in slow, soothing circles across his shoulderblades. He can hear Zayn’s heart, he thinks, beating quicker, and Zayn’s breath’s gone a bit shallow.

When Niall tilts his head up to catch Zayn’s lips, Zayn kisses back immediately, his fingers pressing into Niall’s back and his other hand gripping at Niall’s thigh like he’s not sure where to touch. Zayn presses his tongue into Niall’s mouth, nips at his lips, but doesn’t go much further than that.

“Can we?” Niall breaks the kiss to ask. He grips at Zayn’s waist because he wants to push him backwards. “I know it might be weird, with this whole, wolf thing--”

“Course, babe,” Zayn says a bit breathlessly, grinning that lovely grin that reaches all the way to his eyes, and then biting it down. “Anything, anything you want.”

“But like,” Niall says, and he’s still very close, and he tucks his head down and speaks more to Zayn’s collarbone. “You want to, right?” Because he’s not just Niall anymore, he’s this -- thing, sometimes, and he doesn’t quite know what it is, but Zayn does, Zayn already bears the wounds.

“I want to,” Zayn says immediately.

“I’m a bit self-conscious,” Niall says, deflecting even when there’s nothing to deflect. He pushes back then, and Zayn goes easily, flopping onto his back on the hotel bed.

“Shouldn’t be,” Zayn says as Niall crawls up and looms over him on all fours.

When they kiss, it’s like Niall can taste Zayn, like the sweetness of his scent is concentrated and addictive and Niall can’t get enough. He sighs into Zayn’s mouth when Zayn slides his hands across Niall’s waist again, this time under his shirt, and drag his blunt nails up and down Niall’s skin. Niall hums, a low sound, bizarrely low, deep in his chest, and it makes Zayn shiver underneath him.

He wants to bite and scratch and mark, so everyone who sees Zayn will know. Then Zayn flattens his hands on Niall’s back, pulling him down so they’re chest-to-chest, and he feels the rough cloth tape.

Everyone will know regardless. So Niall kisses slowly, easily, and lets himself get drunk on Zayn’s scent so close, and it grows stronger as sweat beads on Zayn’s skin.

They end up on their sides, facing each other, shirts lost and legs tangled. Zayn slips a hand down the back of Niall’s pants, gripping his arse and pulling him close so the hard lengths of their cocks align and Zayn gasps into his Niall’s mouth.

“Fuck,” Zayn hisses.

Niall tilts his head down and presses a kiss to the hollow of Zayn’s throat, then drags kisses up his neck to the tender place behind his ear. “Can you,” he says, flushing again, “Use your touch?”

“Dunno,” Zayn says through gritted teeth. “Don’t wanna attract anything else, y’know?”

Guilt charges through him. “Right,” he says. “Course. Sorry.”

“But maybe just a bit,” Zayn says, and then -- it’s like something opens between them, and heat sparks in Niall’s gut, wiping out the guilt, the fear. It’s just arousal, pure and hot, and deep affection. It doesn’t catch him off-guard like it did before. It feels safe, finally he feels safe, and Zayn kisses him and pulls them tighter together and the feeling sparks and alights and he’s gasping into it.

It doesn’t take long for Zayn to wriggle a hand between them (a bit of a challenge) and tug both their cocks out, and the feeling of Zayn’s cock pressed against his own in the tight ring of Zayn’s fingers has Niall arching towards Zayn, tilting his head back, and when he comes Zayn comes and he thinks he feels both orgasms ringing down his spine.

***

“It’ll get easier with time, I promise.”

Niall’s in just his pants, sitting on the cold tile floor of the bathroom again. “You gonna knock me out again?”

“Probably,” Zayn admits, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Depending on how… intense it gets.” They’re alone in the bathroom again, and the lads are outside again, watching _Blade: Trinity_.

“Am I scary?”

“A right terror,” Zayn says with a smirk, and Niall chucks a small hotel soap at him.

“Seriously, mate.”

“Not really.” Zayn shrugs. “A bit unpredictable. You don’t seem to want to do anything bad, you just want to… run about, I guess.”

Niall nods. That’s good, at least, that the murderous urges aren’t visible.

“Takes a few months to get a handle on it. Soon you should be able to like, bring it on when convenient. Still will be a bit messy around the full moon, but not nearly as unpredictable. You’ll get a handle on it.”

***

Zayn’s right, it does it get easier.

***

Four months later, they’re in Chicago on the night of the full moon. Niall stays close to Zayn, stealing whiffs of his scent when he can, and Zayn, in a rare show, keeps zapping him with little doses of calm to take the edge of the oncoming transformation yet. It’s just past nine, and they’re playing Fifa on the bus.

Tour is surprisingly okay for a werewolf. Around eleven, Zayn and Niall will creep into Soldier Field, and Zayn will sit somewhere in the stadium while Niall runs himself to exhaustion up and down the stairs. It’s not ideal, sure, but it works. The crisp night air keeps the cravings at bay. And should anything bad happen, well, Zayn’s there, and Zayn did, in a quiet voice and after a challenging discussion, admit he could kill Niall if absolutely necessary. It likely won’t come to that, Niall knows, but it makes him feel better to know.

“Hey,” Harry says, knocking loudly on the every surface of the bus as he enters. “Hey. It’s Harry. Are you decent?”

“Yes, Haz,” Niall says, rolling his eyes.

“Good!” Harry pokes his head in, and then drops down on the couch next to them. He’s holding one of his big leatherbound journals and a small black book. “Sooooo.” He looks at the television and then at Niall and then at Zayn. “Werewolves, check. Angels, check. What about demons, then? Demons and/or ghosts?”

Zayn scores a goal and Niall curses. “Dunno. Why’d’ya ask?”

“Well, I got this Ouija board--”

Zayn pauses the game. “Harry.”

“So, we might’ve been messing about with it, and I may have done a bit of research here and there, and it’s been going quite well, but I can’t figure out if Lou is possessed or just being a bit of an arse.”

“He’s messing with you, mate,” Zayn says, but stands up.

Niall shuts off the game without saving it. It’s bound to be a long night.

**Author's Note:**

> for fef because why not! this was a bit of self-indulgent fun, thanks for reading. the werewolf lore is a blend of supernatural and anne rice. title comes from "never quite free" by the mountain goats.


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